There are several options for measuring customer experience: feedback devices, surveys opening in browsers sent via text message and email, text message surveys, quick surveys opening after reading a QR code, surveys within websites and applications and of course traditional paper forms. To reach all possible customers it’s often necessary to use different methods to collect customer feedback. However, feedback devices are not only the most cost-efficient but also in other ways the best choice for measuring customer experience when customers are encountered in a physical environment. In this article I’ll compare feedback devices to other methods and consider how to ensure the broadest possible sampling by combining various methods.
To gain the greatest benefits from customer experience measuring, you’ll need the broadest possible sampling and as fresh and accurate customer experience data as possible to be easily utilized in the organizational development. To ensure extensive sampling, it’s worth using multi-channelled customer experience measuring. That requires mapping out customer touchpoints according to which suitable feedback channels are chosen.
When customer encounters are physical, feedback devices are the easiest, quickest, surest and most inexpensive way to collect as much feedback as possible. They also lower the threshold for answering the survey and ensure the broadest possible sampling. The replies are fresh and accurate and they evaluate the experienced customer encounter in particular. If the feedback given afterwards, there’s a high risk that the remaining mental image differs greatly from the original immediate reaction. The experience can change according to what happens after the customer event. If, for example, there’s a parking ticket waiting by the car, the previously positive experience can turn into a negative one. Feedback devices reach also those potential customers that didn’t buy anything – yet.
Price per answer vs coverage
When comparing options for customer experience measuring, it’s essential of course to consider the price of an answer and the coverage. For example, text message surveys are also an easy way to collect feedback but their price per answer is significantly higher than that of feedback devices. With feedback devices you can get a much broader sampling at the same price. Email surveys are even more affordable but they’re much more laborious to answer and therefore have a much smaller response rate. On the one hand, text message and email surveys can reach those customers without a physical encounter. On the other hand, both options require having the respondents’ contact details, which restricts the amount of replies and limits the survey to those only. However, a survey opening in a browser sent via text or email can be notably broader than a survey presented on a feedback device.
Obviously, the customer satisfaction surveys on websites or applications don’t reach anyone but their users, so it’s important to measure customer experience other ways as well. Reading a QR code requires so much technical know-how that at least for the time being most customers wouldn’t reply. Paper forms on their part are laborious for both, the respondent and the receiver, but they can serve a purpose in small or particular environments, such as a locker room at a gym.
It’s also worth noting that the customers of certain services don’t necessarily want a reminder of their experience later on. For example, after a cancer treatment or other unpleasant operation, it can be psychologically easier to rate the experience in situ.
Different options for measuring customer experience don’t have to compete with each other, instead they can complement each other as needed to cover the whole customer base. The survey content and extent can be planned according to the feedback channel, thereby collecting different feedback for different purposes. Feedback devices are the smartest choice to evaluate physical encounters but you might need to other methods to complement them. Fortunately, Roidu isn’t a one-trick pony so we can publish the surveys in other ways as well. Read more about our handy turnkey service for customer experience measuring.
